In the Encinitas Union School District, an all-elementary district in San Diego County, parents learned last month the “Kinderbuddy Program” is pairing fifth graders with kindergartners to learn about transgenderism.
Signal story reports bad signs for girls in Minnesota schoolsBob Kellogg, AFN.net Two public school districts in Minnesota’s largest cities are caving to transgender ideology over the protests of female students and their parents. According to a Daily Signal article, school districts in Rochester and Minneapolis are adopting policies. Minneapolis Public Schools approved its “Gender Inclusion” policy in June. Rochester is set to approve a policy called “Supporting Transgender and/or Gender-Expansive Students” in July. Daily Signal reporter Elizabeth Troutman tells AFN 11 other public school districts in Minnesota have approved guidelines that favor boys but also ignore the privacy issues, and potential physical harm, to female students. "And a lot of times these girls and their parents are not notified about this,” Troutman warns, “because the school wants to protect the privacy of the transgender student.” A frustrated Rochester parent, Jeannine Buntrock, told the Daily Signal she moved her daughters to a new school district to avoid its new policy, but she fears the anti-female policy will follow them. "It makes me very uncomfortable to think of my daughters being in a bathroom, a locker room, or a hotel room on a school trip that was not single-sex only,” the mother complained. |
The public only became aware of the program thanks to a parent, Carlos Encinas. He learned about “Kinderbuddy” after his fifth grade son came home and complained he was being forced be sit with a kindergartner to watch a read-along video, according to a detailed article, published June 17, by California Family Council.
The read-along video the children watched is for the children's book “My Shadow is Pink,” which is not just any kid-friendly video. The video description on YouTube states it is a “rhyming story that touches on the subjects of gender identity, self acceptance, equality and diversity.”
Laurie Higgins, who writes about culture and education at Breakthrough Ideas, tells AFN school officials pushing transgender ideology are sneaky about their goals. They insist they want every student to be accepted and affirmed but they twist the meaning of those words.
“What's so outrageous about that is they don't mean they want all children to be treated kindly,” she says. “They mean they want all leftist ideas to be affirmed."
Teacher plays dumb, school pushes back
Encinas is learning that lesson first hand, according to the California Family article. According to the father, once he confronted his son’s teacher, he was told “My Shadow is Pink” is not about gender identity, even though the book describes a boy who identifies as a girl and wants to wear pink to school.
AFN found the book for sale online on the website Queer Haven Books, because it "[h]ilights current themes of gender identity."
Since the classroom assignment is a coloring exercise with shadows, the teacher told Encinas his son and other students were doing a coloring assignment about "buddies" who are "playing with the shadows."
After word spread about the video, so many irate parents showed up at a May school board meeting many of them were forced to stand outside. At the meeting, they witnessed their demands for parental notification, and an opt-out option for their children, go ignored by Encinitas.
“We the people have the freedom to opt-out,” one parent told the school board. “We are going to opt-out as Christians. If you don’t accept our opt-out, we’ll see you in court.”
Reacting to public outrage, the school principal and the PTA organized a “Pink Out the Hate” event which Encinas viewed as an attempt to intimidate parents into remaining silent.
